Shadows in the Cave Read Free Page B

where that so-called gift took her.”
    His father’s eyes held Aku harder than his hands. “Promise me now. Promise you’ll never do it.”
    Salya spoke with defiance in her voice. “Aku, promise me and our mother that you will do it.”
    Father and daughter glared at each other. At the same moment both of them repeated, “Promise.”
    Aku started to stammer something out, but he was tongue-tied. Finally, he said, “I am my mother’s son.”

3
    “Y ou have to eat by yourselves,” Shonan told the twins. “I won’t be here.”
    “Even tonight?” Aku said. Salya wanted to say something about “your great mission,” but she knew it would sound sarcastic.
    Salya thrust Shonan a strip of dried meat and waved him away. She and Aku never liked it when their father skipped eating with them. Their mother dead six years, their grandparents gone, they were already a family of only three, the smallest in the Tusca village.
    “I’m sorry,” said Shonan. “I have to be alone.” To think, to plan, to anticipate, to revel in his success.
    In the last of the day’s light Shonan the war chief slipped invisibly from the village, made use of every bit of cover to glide around through the woods, climbed high, and then crept downhill. He padded one careful step at a time toward the boulder. “As silently as a leaf falls,” he always taught his young men. Finally Kumu was within an easy toss. Shonan underhanded a pebble and plinked him on the shoulder.
    The young man whirled, spear cocked.
    “Easy,” said the Red Chief, both hands up and palms forward.
    Kumu let out a burst of breath. “You caught me again.”
    “It’s my job,” said Shonan. “And you’re dead.”
    They both laughed. Kumu was silly-looking because one of his two front teeth was turned a quarter sideways. The dark gap on each edge made the enamel look whiter. And he liked to joke with everyone. His name meant “clown.” Though he had been on a vision quest and surely had been given a grown-up name, he preferred to stick with Clown.
    Tonight, though, was serious business. As war leader, Shonan chose the village sentries for each day, assigned them their places, and taught them the double-faced skill, patience combined with alertness. At least once every quarter moon he sneaked up on one of them, as a lesson. He always fooled them, and they never caught him.
    “Well,” said Kumu, scrambling down the boulder to join Shonan, “at least this will be the last time you kill me in this village.”
    “It will,” said Shonan. “Get along. Enjoy the evening.” Whenever he caught a sentry like that, Shonan did the fellow the service of taking the rest of his watch.
    The war chief settled down atop the boulder, leaning back against part of it, so he wouldn’t make a human silhouette in the dark. He had mixed feelings about the watch from sundown to the middle of the night. Along with keeping his eyes out for enemies, he half-liked seeing the village settle down to sleep. On such a warm summer evening no plumes of smoke streamed from the tops of the dome-shaped huts of sticks and mud—the women cooked outside. The men ambled back from wherever they had been, making weapons or telling stories or hunting, and squatted down to share supper with their big families. A while after dark the women put out their fires and gathered the children inside. The dogs curled up against the outer walls. The men slipped in to join their wives on the hide pallets.
    For Shonan the scene struck a poignant chord. His heart and his bed had been empty since his wife was killed six years ago. He would never stop missing Meli. Lying down at night would be hard for as long as he lived. Even the twins strummed sorrow in his chest. Aku probably was heir to the gift for shape-shifting, which had gotten Meli killed. And Salya had exactly her mother’s form and movements. True, mother and daughter had opposite temperaments, Meli water and Salya fire, but Salya had the same way of